This is something that a lot of people don’t understand: you must be there when the vehicle is being picked up (if the shipment is door-to-door). When the carrier arrives to pickup the vehicle, the first thing they’ll want to do is an inspection of the vehicle, as well as make sure that it’s the right vehicle that they’ll be picking up. Typically, carriers don’t see the vehicle before they pick it up; they know what the year, make and model are, but that’s about it. No pictures, nothing like that, so it’s up to you as the customer to make sure that the carrier isn’t picking up your neighbor’s truck by mistake (although that would be pretty funny).

After the inspection of the vehicle, the carrier is going to give you some papers to sign, mainly stating that you’re releasing it into his custody and that he’ll deliver it with as little damage as possible at the destination. Once that’s done, you watch as he loads it up and drives away with it, and it’s the same thing on the other side, too. When a car is being delivered, you must be there to sign the papers and do the inspection, just like before. If there’s any damages, you can simply talk to the auto shipping broker that arranged the shipment and they’ll take care of it for you.

If you can’t possibly be there, you can have a friend or relative there to sign on the car for you. So, it’s OK to have weird uncle Charlie there to sign off on the vehicle that’s heading out to San Diego from Lexington, Kentucky, while you’re in the moving van on I-10 halfway there already. That’s not a problem. Just make sure that the carrier knows that weird uncle Charlie will be there for the pickup, and you’ll be at the destination to see your vehicle safely unloaded.